Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986)O'Keeffe was born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. During the 1920s, her large canvasses of lush overpowering flowers filled still lifes with dynamic energy and erotic tension,
while her cityscapes were testaments to subtle beauty within the most industrial circumstances. She married Alfred Stieglitz in 1922. For the next twenty years the two would live and work together, Steiglitz creating an incredible body of portraits of O'Keeffe, while O'Keeffe showed new drawings and paintings nearly every year at his gallery. When Steiglitz in 1946 died, O'Keeffe took up permanent residence Taos. In 1977 her she received the Medal of Freedom, and in 1985 she received the Medal of the Arts.

O’Keeffe often painted objects from nature whose formal qualities attracted her. She once wrote: “Nobody sees a flower—really—it is so small—we haven’t time—and to see it takes time, like to have a friend takes time. . . . So I said to myself—I’ll paint what I see—what the flower is to me—but I’ll paint it big. . . . I will make even busy New Yorkers take time to see what I see of flowers.” One of O’Keeffe’s favorite paintings, White Rose hung in the bedroom of her Abiquiu, New Mexico, home until 1979, when she selected it for the Museum.